News Corp suspends 60 community print titles
News Corp Australia will pause production on 60 community newspaper titles in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia from April 9.
News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller said the decision to suspend printing of its community newspapers was not taken lightly, and comes in the wake of plunging advertising revenues from the real estate and hospitality sectors.
Very sad. If job losses occur, places like Brisbane will be without a lot of coverage. It’s not the Courier-Mail reporters attending courts and councils outside of the Brisbane CBD, it’s Quest and sometimes AAP. If Quest makes significant cuts than there is going to be a news desert south of the Brisbane River when AAP shuts its doors. And yes you have the Brisbane Times, but they don’t like going to far away from the CBD either.
The journo’s are still working, the medium their reporting goes to is just changing. No longer print but the digital version of the Quest.
It’s not such a bad thing when you think about how much better the online versions of the local news sites will get, with more staff and attention than they have ever had.
Everyone and anyone can get news online. Journal’s will still have an outlet. Real estate / auto dealers will still have an outlet. Local communities will still have an outlet.
Always sad when people lose jobs
Not sad if Murdoch doesn’t earn as much money. Has Newscorp paid any tax recently?
Surely everyone understands these newspapers will never be printed again. Our NewsLocal print edition was struggling as it was, and they freely admit it was only delivered to a handful of advertiser-friendly areas of the huge region. Every article on their website is paywalled though, it will be interesting to see what they do about that as I don’t know a single person who would pay for a community newspaper subscription.
I agree with Josh. This has been a longtime coming. Next we will see weekend newspapers. Our dependence on digital over the next 12 months at home will create a new habit that won’t break.
These will never be printed again.